Phonetics

Why Is This Shape “Bouba” and That One “Kiki”? The Surprising Science of Sound Symbolism

Have you ever wondered why a spiky shape just *feels* like a "Kiki" and a rounded one a "Bouba"? This…

3 weeks ago

The Chameleon Tone: Unlocking the Musical Logic of Mandarin’s Tone Sandhi

Mandarin is famously a tonal language, but what many learners quickly discover is that the tones they memorize often change…

3 weeks ago

Hearing with Your Eyes: The McGurk Effect and the Illusions of Speech Perception

What happens when your eyes and ears receive conflicting information? The McGurk effect is a powerful illusion where seeing a…

3 weeks ago

The Phonetics of Pop: Why Some Languages Are More “Singable” Than Others

Ever wonder why Italian opera sounds so smooth or why English dominates the pop charts? The answer lies in the…

3 weeks ago

The Unspoken Melody: How Intonation Carries More Meaning Than Words

Beyond vocabulary lies prosody—the music of speech. From the rising inflection that turns a statement into a question to the…

3 weeks ago

The Pressure-Cooker Consonants: An Introduction to Ejectives

Ejectives are a fascinating category of consonants found in languages from the Caucasus to the Americas. Made by building up…

3 weeks ago

The Descent of the Larynx: How a Quirky Evolutionary Shift Gave Humans the Power of Speech

Human speech is a miracle of evolution, but it comes at a steep price. Our ability to form a rich…

3 weeks ago

Clicks, Pops, and Whistles: A Journey into the World’s Rarest Speech Sounds

Go beyond familiar consonants and vowels on a journey into the world's phonetic rarities, from the sharp clicks of Southern…

3 weeks ago

Word Avalanches: Sentences That Repeat the Same Sound

Word Avalanche: Sentences That Repeat the Same Sound In the colorful landscape of linguistics and playful word usage, a phenomenon…

2 years ago

The Southern Accent and Perceptions of Education

The question, "Why do southern accents sound uneducated?" is rooted in stereotypes and prejudices which are worth unpacking and challenging.…

2 years ago

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